Homemade CO2 Pump to Planted Aquariums

Introduction: Homemade CO2 Pump to Planted Aquariums

stablish the proper conditions to produce natural CO2 with basic and cheap

materials. This is a topic of interest to those people that enjoy having

healthy aquatic plants whether it is for decoration or hobby. For those who

don’t know anything about how to keep up aquariums, I can clarify that it doesn’t affect

the domestic fishes at all, instead, it can bring positive benefits to your

life and I want to share that to you from my personal point of view.

It is very important to plan it before starting out so we have the materials, the tools, the time,

the location and the logistic to achieve it successfully minimizing any difficulties that ruin our

experience while working.

Step 1: Project Cost

This is a very easy project not only because it doesn’t require any kindof deep knowledge about chemistry and physics, but because most of the items tomake it we already have or are replaceable depending on our own mental skillsand invention. The total cost of it buying all the items is $80.00. Ifyou don’t have the money don’t discourage yourself, just try to understand whatthe project is about, and you will see that practically everything on it can bemade with homemade or recycled materials, is your challenge to personalized it andmake up new things.

Step 2: Materials

The materialsthat are going to be needed are:

1. 2 Liters Bottle; for free or $2.00 max.

2. Regular Syringe $1.00

3. Airline Tubing (any pet store); $6.00

4. All-Glass Aquarium Silicone Aquarium Sealant(pet store); $9.00

5. Super glue; $6.00 to $10.00

6. Sugar (brown sugar works too); $3.00

7. Yeast; $5.00

8. Sponge; $6.00

9. Aquarium gravel; 6.00

10. Fish carrier or small container; $6.00

11. Aquarium air valve (any pet store); $1.00

12. Aquatic plant (any pet store); $?

Step 3: Tools

The tools thatare going to be needed are:

1. Star screwdriver; $7.00

2. Pliers; $10.00

3. Lighter; $3.00

4. Funnel; $2.00

5. Scissors; $3.00

Step 4: 1. Making the Drop Counter

We will pull back-off completely from the syringe the plunger, then we

insert the tubing in the back of the barrel and seal it with the silicone, it

is very important to make sure that the air only flow into the barrel through

the tubing and the mouth.

After the silicone is all dry, the next step is opening a hole right in

the middle of the bottle’s cap with the screwdriver, the lid is supposed to be

very fragile so preheat the end of the screwdriver with the lighter until it is

hot enough to go straight through the plastic cap with no problem. The hole

should be big enough so we can plug in the mouth of syringe through without

forcing it. Then after both the cap and the syringe fit perfectly, we proceed

to glue them with glue, first which dries faster and then sealing it with

silicone. It is very important not having any escapes, otherwise all this this

work is going to be useless.

Step 5: 2. Marking and Filling Up the Bottle:

We mark our bottle with two different spots, one at the bottom for thesugar, one in the middle where hot water should reach up to dissolve the sugar,and finally the rest the bottle has to be filled with yeast dissolved coldwater. If you find yourself in problems to make the substances go through themouth of the bottle, use a funnel, which might result helpful. Normally afterpreparing the mix, it is going to take about one hour for the yeast to start metabolizingthe sugar resulting in CO2.

Step 6: 3. Adding the Valve to the Drop Counter

We use the scissors or pliers to cut the tubing 2 inches away from the syringe, then weintroduce one of the cavities of the valve into the tubing connected to thesyringe. The other extremity of the valve is going to be connected to thetubing that contact feed the recipient.

Step 7: 4. Attaching the Dropper to the Tubing

The end of the tubing that is going to feed the recipient should not be

left without something called diffuser, which is going to make the CO2 bubbles

a lot smaller and easier to be caught by the plants. For that task we pull the

cork off of the dropper, itself hole just uncovered is going to be the hole

exposed with the water, the other end which is the narrow one should be

impregnated with super glue and inserted into the tubing as deep as possible

without breaking it.

The next is to reap of a peace of the sponge and introduce it with

pressure into the “ex” dropper.

Attaching the tubing to the recipient is a lot easier to one of the corners of the it

than in another place, however you can do it wherever you want. Use super glue

which dries out faster than silicone.

Step 8: 7. Charging Up the Drop Counter

This instrument is made to have water inside so we can see the bubblesclimbing through it, if there are not bubbles it means that the CO2 productionis over. To fill up the drop counter we need to have the valve open (free airflow) and connected to it, then what we do is to submerged the cap of thebottle (Attached to the syringe) into water; once we do it we hold the valvewith our mouth to suction water while we twist knob to close it and stop theair-water flow. Magically the won’t come out of the drop counter unless we openthe valve knob.

Step 9: Final

After following all these steps our project is going to be completed andready to go, the CO2 production is going to last about 1 week, after that we can dump out the old mix andprepare a new one so our plants stay nice and healthy.

Tips

Questions

2 Comments

Agreed. A lot of us who do aquariums loop the power cords so that if they get wet, the water drips down to the floor instead of into the socket. It looks like with this particular set up, there's a loop built in, so that's good. But you might mention it for people who try out your great project.

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